Priority Routes

Maple Ridge has been divided into six zones called routes. Heavy equipment, plows and salting trucks are dispatched into these zones as the snow begins to fall (and before snowfalls to salt the road) to keep the main arterial roads as clear as possible. Priority roads are marked with a 'gold' line on the route maps listed below:

Key Criteria

These routes have been developed based on a number of key criteria including:

access to emergency service facilities

main transit routes

high volume arterial roads

roads and bridges that provide the only access to large neighbourhood centres

Crews clear these 'gold routes' as marked on their zone maps until the snow stops falling, and once the snow stops and these routes are clear, crews begin working on secondary routes where access to schools and other public facilities is essential.

Snow Clearing

The amount of snow will dictate the response and how resources are deployed. Maple Ridge vehicles are all equipped with global positioning system (GPS) tracking systems and are dispatched and monitored from the Operations Centre. This is a critical component of the snow clearing plan, as we are able to move resources from one zone to another based on 'micro-climate' conditions that may see one zone with little snow while another may be inundated with snow. Within Maple Ridge there are wide variations in snowfall amounts, and as the crews see that one area is getting a larger accumulation of snow than others, resources are redeployed as required. As we saw in 2008, some side streets or culs-de-sac did not see a plow as resources were required to keep priority routes clear. Our team is committed to restoring access for residents as fast as possible.